


if the damned gave us a roadmap

by parishilton



Category: Big Brother RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Bottom!Zach, Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Sexual Repression, top!frankie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-02-28 15:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2737733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parishilton/pseuds/parishilton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>suddenly, frankie's squinting and pressing two fingers against zach's neck. "is that," he says incredulously, "a hickie?"</p><p>what was he supposed to say? 'yes, i have a hickie, but it's from you in the future, so don't worry about it'?<br/>-<br/>or, a soulmates au where zach keeps accidentally time traveling to the future to be with frankie because he can't be with him in the present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song "spitting venom" by modest mouse. 
> 
> thank you to nicole for making sure this didn't turn into a sci-fi novel, because that almost happened.

**june, 2014**

  
"what's _mamma mia?"_ zach asks in adoration.

frankie's facial expression tells him this is not the typical response frankie gets when he says he was on broadway. he looks at zach with disbelief, his lips pursed almost in annoyance. nevertheless, he continues. " _mamma mia_ is a broadway show," he says in a baby's voice.

"you're the most _broadway_ person i've ever seen," zach admits, with a huge smile plastered across his face. "i'm just waiting for you to bust out in- " zach cuts himself off to demonstrate an opera-esque bellow.

frankie grimaces. "it might happen," he says, but looks on at zach like he's just discovered a rip in an otherwise good-looking pair of lulumelon pants. he looks at zach like maybe he thought zach had potential, but now he's rethinking it.

zach knows he can come off a little abrasive, but he feels like he needs to impress frankie for some reason he can't figure out. he's talking a mile a minute and he thinks hayden is shooting him warning glances, but he can't control himself.

he just wants frankie to like him.

* * *

  **november, 2014**

 

suddenly, zach is no longer in the beehive room. it's as if he blinked and got transported somewhere else. he thinks he's gone crazy and he wants to stand up and figure out what the hell is going on, but he's seated in a crowd of people in a very dark audience.

his arms feel restricted and he realizes he's wearing his dad's leather jacket back from his dad's college days. zach doesn't think he's stolen this jacket from his dad's closet since his first date with a girl in junior year of high school. so, who the hell is he wearing this to impress?

he looks down and there's a playbill that reads _rock of ages_ in his lap. zach has no idea what that is, but he thinks it sounds kind of exciting. when he sees the date typed in the corner of the playbill, he jolts. _november 10th, 2014_ , it reads.

zach _knows_ it's june. what the hell is this? he skipped five  _months_? did he slip into coma in the big brother house and just wake up now?

the lights dim to the point of pitch blackness. zach can barely make out the people in chairs beside him anymore. he pats down the pockets of his jeans and finds his cell phone. it's already been about a month since he's been able to touch a cell phone. production takes those the second they touch down at the airport.

it glows far too bright in the darkness of the room and zach can feel people's eyes on him. he goes into the settings and turns the brightness down as quickly as he can with less than nimble fingers, already having started to forget how to use the touch screen. he also has a few text messages received from tonight.

calzone

_u here yet? im waiting in line to get in with derrick and his wife_

beastmode cowboy

_zak attack some girl just came up to me and said caleb can you sign this_

zach is actually kind of shocked. he figured he would stay close with cody, but _caleb?_ he must have skipped quite the unexpected summer.

he hears steps in front of him and he glances up quickly, wondering what exactly is going to happen that's so important zach skipped five months to see it. then, frankie walks onto the stage and starts belting out _hit me with your best shot_ and zach can't _believe_ what he's seeing.

frankie was _made_ for the stage. zach doesn't understand why he's here, but he thinks it's worth the mental breakdown he must have gone through to think he's actually in the _future_ just to hear how well frankie sings.

* * *

as quickly as it had happened, it reverses itself like it was all zach's imagination. zach looks up and he's still in the beehive room with frankie, caleb, and hayden, like he never left. but he _had_ , hadn't he? he'd gone five months into the future.

"you have the voice of an _angel_ , dude," zach says, still so fucking impressed by what he just saw.

frankie looks at him in surprise, his expression softening. "thank you," he says.

zach doesn't have a soulmate yet. the only thing he can seem to focus on sometimes is the thought of the head rush when meeting a hot girl only to be filled with disappointment when he realized they couldn't possibly be his soulmate. it's happened so many times, zach actually started letting his mother set him up on blind dates with girls from temple. zach would always end up hoping halfway through the meal that the girl _wasn't_ his soulmate, because these girls always bored the hell out of him.

zach's mother always told him it never, _ever_ happens exactly when or how you think it will. what if this tug he feels to impress frankie, to make him laugh, to do _anything_ to be liked by frankie, means frankie is his soulmate?

this vision he saw - or experienced - must have been a hallucination. otherwise, he really _did_ travel through time. this has to be some bizarre side effect of the bond settling in - assuming frankie is his soulmate. _god_ , the thought terrifies him.

he's never traveled through time before meeting frankie, zach think deliriously. he's also never traveled through time before meeting cody or caleb, yet somehow zach knows there's no way in hell he's one of _their_ soulmates. for one, he's not attracted to men really _ever_.

in fact, the only girl he recognized in his freak hallucination was paola. he just can't imagine that he's meant to be with paola, though. he thinks there must have been something special about that night he traveled to. frankie was the one on stage; it must be something to do with frankie.

zach bites his lip, his head racing with so many confused thoughts. he knew when he met frankie that frankie was special, but could he really be frankie's soulmate if zach wasn't even _gay_?

* * *

"the next one has to be _the_ one," frankie explains, leaning on amber.

zach wonders if frankie has a soulmate waiting for him back home. "did you leave behind anyone special, frankie?" zach asks, trying not to sound too interested.

"no," frankie says quickly. "sorry, but no." he looks up to the closest camera and shrugs, as if to directly mock his past lovers, should they be watching the feeds.

zach bites his lip. _maybe_ , he thinks.

* * *

  
_"that's_ cuddling?" zach snides. he's in the rock room one afternoon, lying in his bed, watching frankie and paola sitting close to each other in the next bed over. he's not so impressed with their cuddling. truth be told, zach's been asked by paolo half a dozen times now to cuddle with her - and he's turned her down every single time. it's not that she's not hot. she is. zach's just too busy trying to split his time between worrying about how into frankie he is and worrying about why it is that he can suddenly travel through time, and not have any control of _when_ it happens. 

frankie has a twinkle in his eye that zach takes as a challenge. he bounces from his mattress to their's and attacks them both. paola gets dragged between them and zach figures this is even better. this way frankie can't even say that zach was necessarily interested. 

the three of them make the mattress dip and shake just from putting so much pressure on it. zach thinks frankie's probably only grabbing his ass from over paola's body so he doesn't fall off the bed, but _maybe_ frankie feels it too. 

it's like a shock of electricity and it has zach's heart beating fast in his chest. he possessively nuzzles into frankie's neck, breathing hot over his skin like he wants his breath to claim this part of frankie as his own, and begins to growl playfully. 

frankie has one arm hooked so tightly around zach's neck that zach can't do anything but press his face to frankie's shoulder, his red sweater warm on zach's face. it's strangely intimate to be so close to two people at once, zach knows, but he's almost forgotten pao's there. zach's giggling so hard as frankie runs his hands up zach's bare back that his hips start to wiggle almost in a compulsory way. it's like his body is telling him to get closer to frankie, but paola is still in the way. 

zach feels his hips pulling closer down like there's a rope around his body leading him to frankie. he's playfully grinding into paola, but only because he can't reach frankie, and it's frankie's hair he's smelling when he presses his hips down, not paola's. 

the intimacy of it ends when paola almost knees frankie in the face trying to escape from between them. her hysterical laughter from being tickled jolts the dreamy, distracted thoughts out of zach's brain, and he pulls back from them to go back to his own bed.

" _wow,_ that was really sexual," frankie smirks.  

* * *

**july, 2016**

  
zach blinks and he's not in the rock room with frankie and pao anymore. he hasn't got a fucking clue where he is, but he feels _amazing_. he's on his back looking up at a ceiling that doesn't resemble the shoddy tiles of the big brother house's. when he feels two hands grasp at his wrists, it startles him.

zach looks up, and holy shit, it's _frankie and it's like their roles have reversed._ the room is blurry, like it's going in and out of focus, but zach recognizes the top of frankie's head. he's looming over zach, but zach can't see his face, just his hair that keeps tickling under zach's nose. frankie isn't wearing his red zip-up sweater anymore, he's shirtless, and zach doesn't know why frankie's on top of him.

he feels something familiar curling in the pit of his stomach, so intense that he feels breathless, like he can't move. he opens his mouth to ask _something (where did we just go? what happened? am i dreaming?)_ , but all that comes out is a whimper. his senses are coming back to him so slowly that it takes him a full minute to realize he's writhing around under frankie.

the tips of frankie's bright pink hair brush against zach's chin and now zach can feel that feeling again, like his skin is on fire. frankie's hips pivot sharply and it drags something high-pitched and whiny out of zach's throat.

frankie raises up so zach can finally see his face, his hairline a little shiny from sweat, and zach knows what's going on. they're fucking. zach must be dreaming, otherwise he's insane. in what parallel universe would he let frankie fuck him?

frankie grabs zach's wrists again, pressing him into the mattress. zach feels like he only has partial control over his body. he can feel everything suddenly, but can't move. then, frankie circles his hips while he's _inside_ of zach and zach isn't completely sure he _wants_ to move. this is the best sex of his life, even though it's only a dream. he might as well have the best dream-orgasm of his life while he's here. _fuck it_. he's clearly fallen asleep in the rock room. 

zach doesn't give a fuck that it's a guy he's pulling down to him, he instinctively wraps his arms around frankie's shoulders and tugs him down. he doesn't want a kiss or anything, he can't explain why he did it. it felt reflexive, like he didn't need to think about it. it's almost like dream-zach is trying to get dream-frankie to go deeper, and that turns zach on, even though he's also so fucking confused.

the bones in frankie's shoulders move so gracefully as he fucks zach and zach feels himself getting close. he wonders if he'll wake up from this dream before he comes; he's never had an orgasm in a dream before. frankie reaches between them to touch zach's dick and zach stops him.

"no," zach manages to rasp out. even in a dream, zach knows this is crossing the line. he's never let a guy touch his dick before and he doesn't think he's ready to start now.

frankie looks up at him in confusion, then says, " _oh_. you want to come untouched?" before he drops his head back down and starts sucking on zach's neck.

zach doesn't understand, but he shuts up again. he thinks this dream is so realistic that he must be humping his pillow in his sleep, or something. he looks down between them and his dick is painfully hard, slightly purple, and leaking onto frankie's taut lower stomach.

he doesn't ever remember being so fucking horny in his life. he thinks _it's not gay if i can't see frankie's dick, never mind the fact that i can't see it because it's inside of me_. he wraps his arms so tightly around frankie's back that frankie can only move in tiny circles. frankie's resting his head on zach's bare chest and zach thinks he can feel the sweat from frankie's forehead there.

frankie is pressed against him so tightly that zach's dick is unintentionally rubbing against frankie's stomach. frankie runs his hands under zach's thighs as if to silently tell zach to wrap his legs around him. zach does so involuntary, can feel his body responding as if his mind is telling him this happens all the time, like they have sex _all the time_.

even as zach's mind is in a state of frenzy, he can't help but moan. he feels frankie moving in him so deeply that it's almost enough to make his eyes roll back. he's never felt like _this_ before and he thinks he might be shaking from how badly he needs to come. frankie's hips begin to move more erratically and then zach feels frankie stilling inside him. zach has a strange urge to play with the hair at the nape of frankie's neck as frankie buries his face in zach's shoulder and comes inside him.

once frankie snaps out of it, he starts to suck gently on zach's neck again. it's about the only thing that's been familiar about this entire experience. frankie's kissed his neck before and zach has always tried to ignore how it made him weak in the knees. before he knows it, he's shooting his load all over frankie and whining into frankie's ear, still clutching at his back.

zach had never imagined gay sex at length before, but when it had been a fleeting thought in his head, he had imagined it as being similar to how his father described his prostate exams. this was nothing like that. zach wishes all of his dreams were this good.

* * *

  
he opens his mouth to ask frankie where the hell they are, blinks before he can start, and suddenly he's awake in the rock room, his vision blurred again.

his hearing keeps cutting out, but he thinks he can make out a girl's voice, sort of far away sounding. it almost echoes. he finally sits up, thinking _wow, what a weird dream_. he sees paola leaving the rock room, making a lewd gesture at him as she goes.

he turns to his right in confusion, to find frankie sitting there looking at him. "how long was i asleep for?" zach asks, yawning and stretching his arms out.

frankie's eyebrows cinch together. _"what?"_ concern is written all over his face. he reaches out to rest the back of his hand against zach's forehead as if to check his temperature. "are you okay, zach?"

zach feels a little dizzy, maybe the start of a headache, but otherwise normal. "yeah," he shrugs. he thinks _what if i was making noises in my sleep? what if frankie heard?_   "why?"

"you closed your eyes for, like, five seconds." he stares at zach blankly. "you weren't sleeping."

zach is surprised his dream felt like it lasted so long when it was so short, but he shrugs again. "yeah, i was. just a quick power nap."

suddenly, frankie's squinting and pressing two fingers against zach's neck. "is that," he says incredulously, "a _hickie?"_

zach blanches. how is that possible? all of a sudden it dawns on him - that wasn't a dream. he had time traveled again. to _when_ , he can't even guess. he realizes the hickie must really be there. _oh, god, that means he hooks up with frankie in the future, for real._ he reaches to cover up his neck with two fidgety hands, feeling embarrassed to be looking at frankie knowing what he does know about them in the future. "no!"

frankie's mouth drops open. "yes, it is. it's a hickie. you have a hickie," he repeats in disbelief.

zach groans. "it's not a _hickie."_ he tries to think on his feet. "i, um, burned myself with nicole's flat iron."

frankie's eyes narrow. several beats later, he asks, "did you hook up with pao?"

 _"no,"_ zach says with a grimace. "do you really think i'd hook up with pao?"

"yes," frankie says immediately.

"well, i didn't," zach clarifies, feeling offended.

frankie stares at him in silence. after several long, guilt-filled seconds on zach's part, frankie says, "i can't believe pao gave you a hickie. that's so unfair. i'm jealous."

zach snorts. what was he supposed to say? _yes, i have a hickie, but it's from you in the future, so don't worry about it._ "it's not a hickie and i have not hooked up with _pao."_ _just you_ , zach thinks in shame. it's not like frankie would believe zach even if he told him.

* * *

they have a detonators meeting week three that tampers out until only christine and frankie are left in the hoh room with zach. christine starts talking about tim, how she knew him her whole life, and never even questioned dating anybody else before marrying him.

"that's incredible," frankie says, but zach doesn't think he means it in a complementary way. "i don't think i could settle down with one person indefinitely."

christine rolls her eyes. "you _say_ that," she remarks with the patronizing tone of an elderly woman, "but you'll know when you meet him."

frankie says nothing and zach wonders if there's a possibility there's more to the story that frankie's not letting on. he'd heard stories about people who had met their soulmate and ignored the tug for years, even some who moved to other countries if they didn't want to be bonded with the person.

zach once knew a guy in his fraternity that had bonded with his latin american studies professor and ignoring it had given him a minor strain of the flu for a month straight. some people still say heath ledger died of a broken heart after not pursuing his bond with jake gyllenhaal, but zach never gave it much thought.

the cases where soulmates don't actually end up together are slim, regardless of sexual orientation. there are no documented cases of ignoring your soulmate causing _death_ , just tabloid garbage about your needle in the haystack case every now and then. minor illnesses occasionally, but mostly just plain pining, nothing crazy.

a lot of people in their twenties who meet their soulmates maintain open relationships if they aren't ready to settle down, but they always end up closing it off in the end. maybe frankie had dated his soulmate, but it had gone sour, and now he wants to deny that it was the real thing, for fear that he'll never be in love again. zach values his friendship with frankie too much to pry, but he wishes he knew.

frankie finally responds with his head held high, like he's too good for the concept of soulmates. "people who find their soulmates are basically," frankie begins, struggling to find the right word, " _damned._ " he stands at the foot of the hoh bed, tugging on a pair of red track shorts over his briefs.

zach dips his head sideways, eyes following frankie's body. "damned to _what?"_ he grins, humoring frankie's assessment.

"damned to becoming a different person," frankie clarifies, on the defensive. "i had friends who quit jobs they'd worked _years_ to get. they sacrificed their careers for people they'd known for all of a few days. all that for nothing."

zach feels the panic rising in his chest. he tells himself he's still not sure frankie is his soulmate, but he almost can't imagine it being anybody else after having _met_ frankie. the instant connection they had when they met had made zach assume that the hook up he knew they had in the future meant something _more_. the entire experience had seemed like it was one of many. zach thinks he simultaneously might have had sex with frankie for both the first time ever that day and, say, the one hundredth time ever, but zach can't say anything.

he crosses his arms behind his head with a smug smile, though his insides feel they're being crushed by the weight of an elephant. "if i find my soulmate after this, she better be a _smokebomb_ , or it's not even happening."

christine purses her lips together in disgust. "well, that was nice."

"you're a lunatic," frankie shakes his head, but seems fond.

* * *

zach overhears the girls in the bathroom one afternoon, gossiping about something. he was on his way upstairs to hang out with cody, but he backtracks and lingers when he hears soulmates being brought up.

"what if hayden was my soulmate?" nicole asks, her voice full of giddiness.

"he's probably not," christine inputs, followed by a shrill cackle that actually stirs a sick feeling in the pit of zach's stomach that tells him he's feeling something like sympathy in his body for nicole. he's not sure _why_ , but it pains him to think nicole could be wasting her time on something that just isn't meant to be.

"he _could_ be!" nicole whines, the slight twang in her voice coming out with her frustration. "you never know!"

"you'd _know_ ," jocasta says, "i knew."

"i knew as soon as i met my husband too," christine adds.

there's an odd lull in the conversation and zach thinks maybe they've stopped talking because nicole has gotten upset, but then jocasta finally speaks. "sometimes we don't always end up with the person we _think_ we should be," she says slowly. "sometimes god has other plans for us."

zach feels distress all throughout his whole body. he doesn't want to know that any of the horror stories could be true, about people who don't end up with their soulmates, even if it's by their _own_ choice. he knows jocasta dated women when she was young. then, she must have abandoned her soulmate out of fear.

he thinks, before he can help it, _oh god, that could be me._ he doesn't like thinking about how strong his feelings are for frankie. the world starts to tilt on it's axis and zach has to slump heavily into the wall so he doesn't pass out. somehow, the idea of him _not_ ending up with frankie is even more horrifying than the idea of him having to face all the repercussions that come with being in love with a man.

"oh my god," amber says, "what happened?"

"god made the decision for me," jocasta says. "that other girl never recovered. she suffered from delusions for the rest of her life."

zach thinks he could cry. life can't go on like this forever. if he can't stop time traveling, eventually he's going to lose it. no mind is strong enough for the constant tug of war zach feels, always having one foot in today and one foot several years down the line.

and it only makes it worse that frankie doesn't believe people should give in to the notion of soulmates. frankie basically said he would abandon his soulmate if they got in the way of his career.

zach panics. he doesn't want to hear the rest of their conversation. he runs upstairs as fast as he can.

* * *

a week later, zach's flipped his pillow to the cold side so many times that both sides now feel sticky and hot on his face. his hand is wrapped around himself in the dark and he's trying to work himself off, he really is, but it's just not enough.

he could just stop trying to come and put his half hard dick back into his underwear and go to sleep. he could get up and make something to eat to preoccupy himself from his racing thoughts.

every time he remembers what had happened - and he's still finding it hard to admit he could have time traveled - he gets hard. the way frankie had held him in place so easily, the way zach _let_ frankie hold him down, it was all too much. every time zach gets close to coming, the thought pops into his head and he lets go of himself so he doesn't get off on it.

he feels a headache coming on and it sets him into a panic. he tries to focus on what he's doing now, hoping it will help to steady him into keeping his feet firmly planted in this current moment in time. but, somehow, it does the opposite.

* * *

  **march, 2017**

  
he opens his eyes after several long seconds, exhaling slowly, making his mind up to get up and go to the kitchen to get a glass of water. instead, he's suddenly looking up at some other ceiling. 

his breathing gets unsteady again as he panics. he's never been here before. he doesn't know where he is. the room is brilliantly shadowed in pink and blue mood lighting and the room across from this one looks pitch black. he tries to think of somebody in the future who could have such ridiculous lights and comes up with nothing. maybe he's accidentally been transported into some meth dealer's luxurious apartment in berlin and he's about to be greeted by a slew of german prostitutes.

he struggles to think of what could have happened. his subconscious mind must have held onto his desire to not be alone instead of his surface thoughts of trying to focus on _not_ time travelling.

zach hears gentle footsteps, somebody probably barefoot coming closer. there's a shadowy figure of a thin man standing a few yards from him. "hey, what are you doing out here?"

zach immediately recognizes frankie's voice. relief instantly washes over his entire body. he's not alone in some fucking rich drug lord's home. frankie sounds fond and doesn't sound at all surprised to find zach in this strange drug lord's apartment with him.

"um," zach says, his voice hoarse, "nothing, dude!" it comes out defensive and makes it sound like zach is here for some suspicious reason, maybe to burglarize this home. maybe he and frankie decided to become criminals after big brother and rob apartments together.

frankie laughs softly, slowly shuffling forward barefoot to zach. he stands in front of zach, who's still sitting on the sofa, and zach realizes frankie is only wearing a pair of tiny white underwear.

 _"dude?"_ frankie questions, pink light suddenly cascading over his face as he crinkles his nose. "i don't think you've called me that in three years."

zach bites his lip. he hopes he hasn't blown his cover. he wants to ask where the fuck they are, but _god,_ frankie might think he's gone insane. for all he knows, this is zach's apartment and frankie is here to play monopoly with him.

frankie seats himself on zach's lap, one leg on either side of zach's waist. his tanned thighs trap zach down on the couch and zach thinks frankie probably isn't here, in the middle of the night in this drug lord's luxury apartment, for monopoly.

"sorry," zach says. frankie's sitting in his lap in his tiny underwear like it's the most perfectly normal thing they've ever done and zach's voice cracks when he apologizes for calling frankie _dude._ all of these cold, hard facts only lead to one logical conclusion, but zach is too terrified to admit it to himself.

frankie threads his hand through zach's hair and looks down at him with maybe the cutest look he's ever given zach. zach isn't getting any memories at all, so he still has no clue where they are or how far into the future this is, but he can guess it's not far off. frankie's hair looks dark blonde now, with absolutely no pink residue, and he would look like a dignified new yorker if not for his nudity.

"are you hard?" frankie asks delightedly.

zach's eyes widen. _shit, shit, shit._ he looks down at his own lap and he thinks maybe he's still half hard from touching himself before he jumped into the future, but maybe he's hard because he's got a half naked guy on top of him yanking at his hair. "uh...." _where the hell are we? how old are you? how old am i? what year is it? are we in a homosexual relationship?_ "what time is it?"

frankie's hand pulling at the hair at the nape of zach's neck is making zach harder and he wonders if this is part of frankie's master plan. "it's four in the morning."

zach thinks about the time when he was still in his bed in the rock room, trying to fall asleep. it could have been about four in the morning. maybe him concentrating so hard on trying to sleep at night is the reason why he's jumped forward to the dead night in _this_ time period.

"stop ignoring me," frankie says, pouting slightly and jostling zach's shoulders with his hands. "kiss me."

zach's heart skips in his chest and he doesn't know - he doesn't know if he _can._ he can't breathe suddenly and he squeezes his eyes shut like maybe he can jump back in time from sheer will alone, although he knows he can't.

his eyes are still squeezed tightly together when frankie leans in and kisses him. his tongue opens zach's mouth easily and zach thinks maybe he wasn't trying very hard to keep it shut. the intuition zach feels to suck lightly on frankie's tongue overwhelms him, until he can't help but do it. it's not a solid memory - he sees no image in his head at all. it's more like deja vu and zach thinks maybe if he were to stay in this time period for a day or two, he'd get full memories from himself at whatever age he is now. he has a weird feeling like frankie might start tugging on his hair again - and then he does. it sends a shiver down his spine and he realizes he can freely do whatever he wants and nothing is out of bounds here.

the fear he feels in the big brother house is dissipating quickly now that they're alone and it's dark in here and zach feels oddly safe in this place. he runs his hands up and down frankie's back like he sometimes sneakily does when they hug and frankie leans back into it. zach feels frankie rocking against him and his breath catches in his throat. it reminds him of doing this with his study partner, melissa something or other, back in eleventh grade, but it's dirtier with frankie in his thin underwear. zach can see the outline of frankie's dick and he wants to feel it, suddenly, surprising himself.

 _"zach,"_ frankie groans, "take off your pants."

zach's wearing the exact same pair of sweatpants he was wearing to bed back in los angelos in 2014 and he doesn't know how much time has passed since then or what city he's in now, but hopefully enough time has passed that frankie doesn't remember these pants. he starts to shuck them off and then frankie is off his lap, kneeling on the wooden floor and pulling zach's pants off by the ankles.

then, frankie gently pushes zach flat on his back and lifts zach's thighs apart and zach is almost shaking from a combination of nervousness and want. he was jacking off earlier thinking about this and he hadn't wanted to admit it, but this _is_ what he wanted to happen. 

he thinks he's acting too desperate, but he also thinks  _who am i kidding? it's not like anybody from my time will know_ and he spreads his legs a little wider so frankie can settle between them. he lets frankie wetly kiss his neck until he's jerking his hips involuntarily up into frankie's and he doesn't think he's ever gotten so lightheaded just from being kissed on the neck. he wants to blame the time travel for feeling like he could pass out at any second, but all he got last time this happened was a nasty headache, not ever having felt faint. it's embarrassing to admit that he's faint from frankie kissing him.

"can you reach the drawer?" frankie asks softly from somewhere between zach's neck and the sofa cushions.

zach can't focus on anything but frankie's tongue on his neck. "huh?" he asks.

"the drawer?" frankie prompts, finally raising his head from zach's neck to look at him strangely.

zach nods like he has any remote idea of what frankie's asking for. he stretches out his arm until his fingertips graze the coffee table. he fumbles in the dark to find the knob to the bottom drawer. when he opens it, he fishes through a stack of magazines until he feels a pack of condoms and what feels like a travel sized tube of toothpaste.

he hands them to frankie in confusion. frankie rips the condom wrapper open with his teeth like a pro and it stirs something in zach's groin. then, he takes the cap off the small white tube and zach realizes it's lube. then, he blushes because _did they really have sex on this sofa so often that they had to keep lube in the coffee table?_

frankie doesn't even ask if zach wants to be fucked. he thinks _oh god, is this routine? am i some kind of depraved sex fiend that forces frankie into having sex with me all the time?_ but then frankie's underwear-covered dick presses into zach's bare thigh and he knows frankie is turned on because of him.

"you're so sexy," frankie says, and starts to lift zach's thighs again. his cold hands slip up the sides of zach's thighs, which zach think are shaking a bit from nerves. frankie moves to slip zach's underwear off, without asking again, and zach almost panics and kicks frankie off of him, but then remembers how fucking stupid that would be. if this really is routine, then zach should follow it. this _must_ be what's normal for them. what would happen if he worried frankie? he'd have to find a bathroom and lock himself up in it until he could spontaneously jump back in time. 

in the meantime, frankie has already shucked off his own underwear and his dick is pressing against zach's stomach. zach notices that frankie is not circumsized. even in the dark, zach can see the differences in their dicks. he studies frankie's dick as if he were in an anatomy class, or at least that's what he's telling himself. frankie has foreskin that zach doesn't have, but zach thinks if he squints he can see that both of their dicks have gone pink with interest of their current position.

"you okay, babe?" frankie suddenly asks him. "you're shaking."

zach wants to tell frankie how confused he is and how one minute he was in bed in los angelos in 2014 and now he's just somewhere _else_ in some _unidentified_ time. he wants to tell frankie that he's thought about _kissing_ him a few times, but never this. he wants to admit that now he sees why frankie always brings up the idea of having sex with him in the house and has never dropped the matter. because this _is_ how it's supposed to be, he sees it now. but frankie isn't looking for a soulmate and zach can't say any of these things. "just cold," zach lies.

frankie immediately runs his hands up and down zach's arms as if to warm him up and somehow this is more intimate of a gesture than him taking off zach's underwear. he's never had anyone treat him so sweetly before. "let's go back to bed," frankie suggests. "we can sixty-nine? or i can eat you out?"

zach gets stuck on, of all things, the fact that frankie said _back to bed._ they're sharing a bed. they share a bed in the future. zach doesn't know who owns this place. he doesn't know if one of them is just staying for the weekend of if they live here together. he doesn't know who he is anymore. apparently he's the kind of guy who sucks off other dudes. or, at least sucks off _frankie._ he feels almost sickly _relieved_ that it's frankie and not some other guy. if he has to suck some dude's dick - well, thank god it's frankie's.

zach pads down the hallway after frankie, trying to pull his underwear back on in haste as he goes. he thinks he's glad he can't see frankie's bare ass in the darkness of the hallway, because he's confused enough as it is.

"you're so quiet tonight," frankie says. "are you still mad that i threw out your orange polo? because i told you it was stained beyond recognition. it's not my fault you eat pasta like a slob." he slips into bed and zach can't tell what size bed it is, so he overestimates the amount of space he might have, and ends up crawling half on top of frankie.

frankie must take this as an intentional move on zach's part, because he leans up and catches zach's mouth. zach's heart races as he's thinking about this piece of information. _frankie washes his clothes for him? could they really live here together?_

zach pulls back from the kiss, one hand resting on frankie's chest. "i don't care about the shirt. can i ask you something?"

"is it about my personal shopper?" frankie laughs, "because she _does_ make house calls."

zach snorts. his body goes slack with relief when he remembers that this is still frankie and _this_ frankie is just as funny as _his_ frankie back in his time. or, maybe not _his_ frankie, not yet. but someday soon. he was going to ask frankie if they live together and how long have they if they do, but he doesn't want to ruin the surprise for himself. "can we do it in the morning?" he hopes he'll have traveled by then. he likes this frankie, but he's a little too frisky for zach. zach thought frankie was at his peak with friskiness in the big brother house. he was obviously dead wrong.

frankie grins up at zach. _"it?_ first you call me _dude_ and now you call sixty-nineing with me _it_. when did a ten year old boy replace my boyfriend?"

zach blanches. _boyfriend._ _god._ zach lives with a guy who's his _boyfriend._ he can't believe it. "uh...."

frankie leans up and softly kisses zach once, close-mouthed and habitual, like he does this every night. "yeah, we can do it in the morning, _dude."_

zach chuckles and settles back down in bed beside frankie and tries to fall asleep. not knowing when he'll travel back after he winds up in the future should be so stressful that it prevents him from falling asleep. apparently not. 

his head slips a little off his own pillow so he's resting on frankie's shoulder. he feels so at ease knowing that even after all this shit in the big brother house, he's not going to lose frankie. he falls asleep almost too easily with his head pillowed on frankie's shoulder.


	2. part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "hey!" zach shouts at her, nerves getting the best of him, "'break free', right?" he asks, forgetting that this isn't supposed to be the first time he's met ariana. 
> 
> ariana looks dumbfounded. "yeah...'sawagoo', right?"

zach feels a warm hand on his shoulder, slowly rubbing back and forth. he sighs sleepily into the pillow and he just _knows_ it's frankie. he shifts his hips in bed, trying to get comfortable enough to doze back off, when he realizes that his ass hurts.

frankie is pressing a kiss to zach's shoulder and huddling close to him in bed. last night zach had tried everything in his arsenal to get frankie to make a move on him. he'd thought for sure it had worked when frankie had asked if his prize for winning their game of pool could be them hooking up.

 _"i mean, we were going to regardless,"_ zach had said honestly, if a little nervous about frankie's reaction to hearing that. of course, frankie had no idea _how_ true that statement really was. zach has seen the future and he literally can't wait for it to happen.

except, that was sort of the problem. the present is nearly impossible to stand. the bond zach is now positive is supposed to be settling between he and frankie hasn't yet. the signals zach keeps sending frankie, which he feels are verging on embarrassingly obvious, aren't doing the trick.

when frankie had left the pool table last night to go to bed, zach had gotten a very clear, very strong urge to follow him. he had biten it back, knowing that following frankie to bed to try and instigate sex on the premise of taking frankie up on their pool game deal would confuse frankie. besides, zach had no desire to have sex on camera.

so, zach had climbed into bed in the rock room alone, squeezed his eyes shut, and now zach was waking up in the future with everything he had ever wanted, including his more recent desires to be held down and fucked by a guy. he wakes up sore, but _fuck_ , he's really happy.

 _"fuck,"_ zach murmurs aloud, "i'm still sore from last night."

"what happened last night?" frankie asks.

zach heart lurches, so he opens his eyes. frankie is bleach blonde again, except for the very top of his hair being pink. he's wearing his baby blue tank top, which makes him look far more innocent than he really is. although, zach still can't help but see how exhausted and miserable frankie looks, with huge bags under his eyes.

zach feels a pang of sorrow when he realizes he's jumped back in time during his sleep. he wants to go back to bed. (no, he wants to go back to the future, the place where frankie was happy and had sex with zach.) "um, nothing," zach says, his voice hoarse from sleep and maybe disappointment, "just slept the wrong way."

"what should i do?" frankie asks, not making eye contact with zach.

zach knows he's talking about who to put up for a replacement nominee should he decide to keep zach around, but he doesn't want to talk game anymore. he's fucking sick of talking about what caleb wants, want cody wants, what derrick wants. what about what zach wants?

frankie wants to know what he should do? zach debates telling frankie he thinks frankie should fuck him, probably. instead, he says, "just do what you gotta do."

frankie finally makes eye contact with him, but his mouth is turned down into a frown.

zach already knows what's going to happen, not because he's seen the future, but because he knows how much this game has fucked them over, even though it's also the only reason they met. this game literally dropped zach's soulmate into his lap only to pry them apart slowly, week by agonizing week. "i can benefit you," zach says, "i really can."

* * *

the afternoon before the live eviction, zach needs the truth. he's been thinking a lot lately about whether the future he's been traveling to is stitched into time itself, or if it's only what happens depending on zach's current actions. is it fate that he and frankie end up together, or will it only happen so long as zach can convince frankie that he's actually interested?

he needs to talk this out with someone who knows a lot of people with soulmate bonds, even if they _are_ celebrity ones. if he needs the pop culture angle on soulmates, then he knows exactly where to go.

"hey, victoria," zach says sweetly, rounding the kitchen island and grabbing the bar stool beside her. "have i told you how much i like that headband before?"

"zach," victoria says snidely, "what do you want?"

zach grimaces. "well, i want to ask you something kind of weird."

"you know i only date men in their thirties who own their own houses." victoria says this while blowing on her bright pink fingernails, like she just got done painting them.

zach rolls his eyes. _"no,"_ he says with a laugh. "you know those stories in, like, _people magazine_ about soulmates?"

"yes...." she says curiously, "of course i do. i'm subscribed to _people magazine_."

zach nods. he figured she would be the one to ask. "so, do you think they're true? like, what if two people were soulmates, but didn't know it and split up, or something-"

"oh, you mean kristen stewart and robert pattinson?" victoria asks, blowing on her nails again.

"no." zach stares blankly. "i mean, like, two random people. is it possible, hypothetically, for somebody to break the laws of physics in order to be with their soulmate?"

 _"what?"_ victoria asks, squinting at him.

"do you think people will end up with their soulmate no matter what?" zach asks, the frustration making his voice rise. if it was possible for jocasta to ignore fate and weave her own future, then couldn't anybody choose to abandon their soulmate?

"like, fate?" she asks calmly. "of course i do."

"what if one person believes in fate and the other person doesn't?" zach has no idea if frankie believes in fate, but there's obviously something wrong with this picture if zach can go to bed in 2014 and wake up in 2017 several times a week. "could that affect the future?"

"zachary," victoria says with a judgmental look, "no two bonds are exactly alike." zach hasn't heard anybody oversimplify soulmate bonds this ignorantly since his sixth grade health class. of course all soulmate bonds were the same. the tell-tale signs were romantic dreams, having above average health and happiness, and not being able to stand being apart. "what is this about?" victoria asks.

zach sighs. he knows it's fucking stupid of him to tell victoria even what he already has, but she's too vapid to put all the pieces together, anyway. he might as well explain. "have you ever heard of somebody time traveling to the future where their soulmate acknowledges that they're supposed to be together?"

 _"zachary!"_ victoria says, her eyes immediately lighting up. "if you wanted to hear how my parents got together, why didn't you just _say_ that?"

zach blanches. "that happened to your _parents_?"

 _"yes,"_ she says in exasperation, rolling her eyes. "i told this story to derrick last night. did derrick tell you how romantic it was?"

zach's chest constricts tightly. _"fuck,_ victoria, are they okay now?"

"what do you mean?" she asks, scowling.

zach pauses, unsure of whether he should ask, but he can't help himself. "they aren't dead or divorced, or anything?"

she shoots him a dirty look. "of course they aren't! what's wrong with you?"

zach grins. "nothing! i'm fucking great. thanks, victoria."

* * *

**december, 2019**

zach wakes up in the jury house for the first time, and the smells wafting through the air remind him that he's no longer in the big brother house. instead of smelling caleb's dirty socks and cody's funky hair gel, he smells something suspiciously like his mother's vanilla yankee candles back home and maybe even hot cocoa.

he thinks that maybe somebody _had_ made hot cocoa. he yawns and opens his eyes, deciding to go downstairs and see if there is any, when he realizes he has it all wrong.

he's laying in an enormous bed that's very low to the ground, with a frame supporting it that's made entirely of metal. the walls are painted white, although one wall is taken up by a floor to ceiling window. one of the walls painted white has a metal fireplace built into it, giving off real heat in the room. there are bizarre, miniature metal sculptures of trees beside the bed. it's chic, but entirely over-decorated. zach feels like he just woke up inside the _i dream of jeannie_ bottle, if jeannie had lived in a revamped metal factory now serving as an art gallery.

zach looks around the room, wondering if he's woken up far enough into the future that he can fulfill the dream he never knew he had until now - riding a hoverboard. he rolls over and sees two cell phones sitting side by side on a bedside table by the other side of the bed. _frankie's side,_ he thinks before he means to. he has literally no proof he lives here with frankie besides the fact that he would bet any amount of money he doesn't have that ariana had hired a decorator for them.

he doesn't know which iphone is his, so he picks one up at random. the one he looks at to check the time has a picture of frankie with a very sweet-faced old lady set as the lock screen, so he figures it's frankie's phone. his eyes skim over the time so quickly that he has to look again, startled, because he's missed the date. _december 25, 2019._

zach is twenty-nine and waking up on christmas day in a refurbished factory he lives in with frankie where they apparently collect ugly art made of metal. he rubs at his eyes. it's too early to take all this in. he rolls out of bed and shuffles past the fireplace in his thick socks and boxer briefs, hoping to find presents awaiting him somewhere else in this apartment.

the living room is just as beautiful, with a twin fireplace burning away silently. frankie is sat on the floor, cross-legged with a christmas stocking in his lap, wearing a red satin robe that looks silky and expensive. zach realizes that frankie's hair has gone a dark honey-blonde color and does the mental math. _frankie is thirty-six._ zach's eyes trail over frankie's bare chest from under the robe and he thinks frankie looks absurdly tan for december. he has a coffee mug that smells strongly of chocolate, so zach knows he wasn't wrong about smelling hot chocolate.

"oh my god," frankie gasps, dropping the stocking. both of his hands fly up to cover his mouth in shock.

zach jumps, looking down at him in confusion. "what? are you okay?"

frankie drops his hands from his face and looks at zach like he wants to say something, but can't. his lips pucker into a fish face like he doesn't know what to say. "you - was that-"

zach watches as frankie slowly picks the stocking back up as if it has cooties. he peeks inside and he pulls out something very small and silver. "i'm sorry," he says, his voice cracking like he's about to start crying, "i know you said last night to wait until you woke up, but i hate waiting. this is your fault; you know i get impatient."

zach's head spins a little. frankie is holding an engagement ring. frankie says that zach told him not to look in his stocking until zach got up in the morning. _oh my god,_ zach thinks, he planted the ring there to surprise frankie and propose to him on christmas morning.

"you look surprised," frankie says slowly, dread filling his voice, "why do _you_ look surprised? is this not for me?"

zach snorts. he might not understand much about his life at twenty-nine years old, but he really, really doubts that he would ever put an engagement ring in frankie's stocking to play a prank on him. "of course it's for _you,"_ he says, grinning as he realizes he likes the idea of proposing to frankie.

"okay," frankie says, raising one arm to wipe his misty eyes on his red satin sleeve. "it's not really your fault. i'm sorry for ruining the surprise."

zach bites his lip. frankie still hasn't said anything about the ring. zach feels his stomach knot up and he hopes frankie isn't going to turn him down. that would be embarrassing even not having all the memories he knows the real twenty-nine year old zach has. "so," zach stammers, "do you, like, want to-"

"oh!" frankie shouts. "yes!" he stands up and walks over to zach. "i have to call my-"

zach shakes his head. "it can wait." he reaches out and pulls frankie closer by the ties of his robe.

"okay," frankie frowns, "but i have to tell-"

zach kisses him softly and nearly forgets it's the first time he's ever instigated a kiss with frankie. well, he hopes that's not the case for twenty-nine year old zach. twenty-four year old zach is a little slow to learn, though.

frankie pulls back from the kiss. "do you realize what this means?"

zach shakes his head.

"nonna can't make fun of you anymore for being too immature to settle down." frankie wiggles his eyebrows and zach has no idea how often this happens that this is frankie's first thought, but he's not looking forward to going through this torment from frankie's likely outspoken grandmother in the future. it's not like he could argue with an elderly woman.

"i can't believe i didn't see it coming," frankie says, shaking his head in disbelief. frankie places both hands on zach's bare chest and sighs dreamily.

"hey, i'm the fucking _man,"_ zach boasts.

"that's so strange," frankie says with a mischievous grin, "because i don't remember you ever having done the fucking, _man_." 

zach laughs. 

* * *

zach is standing awkwardly in the kitchen, leaning against the fridge and wondering if it would be rude to sneak out the back door and wait out this time jump in frankie's car. zach wasn't two steps into ariana grande's loft apartment before ariana grande herself was hugging zach tightly like a brother.

"hey!" zach shouts at her, nerves getting the best of him, " _'break free'_ , right?" he asks, forgetting that this isn't supposed to be the first time he's met ariana.

ariana looks dumbfounded. "yeah... _'sawagoo',_ right?"

frankie laughs loudly, but zach doesn't get the joke, so he scurries off on the pretense of getting a beer from her fridge, although she shouts after him that all she had was absinthe left over from one of _big sean's_ parties. zach hadn't even known his boyfriend's famous musician sister was dating _another_ famous musician. he can't keep any of this information straight in his head.

"hey, munchkin," frankie says as he rounds the kitchen island to tug on zach's arm, with ariana behind him. "nonna is calling for you specifically."

"yeah, _munchkin,"_ ariana teases. "nonna demands to know where _zachary_ is with her absinthe." she smirks and taps her french manicured nails against the granite kitchen island.

zach balks. "nonna drinks _absinthe?"_

ariana laughs deeply. "frankie, what's wrong with him? he's acting like he's never done shots with nonna."

frankie rolls his eyes and steps in closer to zach. "ignore her," he advises, "she's had too much sugar today. nonna actually wants to ask you why you didn't go to her for ring advice."

zach thinks he's going to faint, he's so overwhelmed. it's a lot to take in and he's never met frankie's family before, his head swimming with thoughts like _i'm in big sean and ariana grande's apartment_ and _what if nonna hates me and tells me she isn't going to allow me to marry frankie?_

the next thing he knows, his nose is bleeding and frankie is grabbing him a napkin and pressing it to his nose. "zach, you've never had nose bleeds before," he says with worry lines forming over his forehead.

zach's vision is like the inside of a washing machine, every color mixing together until he can't see anything anymore, not even frankie standing right next to him. this would only make sense if he _had_ been drinking and was tripping on absinthe.

the next second, he's sitting on a couch in a completely different house. there's a camera stuck in his face with light emanating from it almost as blinding as zach's vision problem had just caused him. "zach, get up," someone says from behind the camera. "feet on the tape. why aren't you on your mark?"

it's donny who comes to jury and zach hardly feels himself hugging donny, a migraine forming in his head from that stint he just had in 2019 that was definitely the longest he'd had yet. the headaches he's been having because of his traveling have been getting worse and worse lately.

"zach," donny says later that night when they're sitting alone out on the back porch, "you're making me miss my girlfriend. i don't know who you're bonded with, but can you stop missing them so hard?"

zach stiffens. "no, donny, i'm not with anyone."

"maybe not," donny says, "but you're definitely not free either."

zach bites his lip. he wants to shrug and get up, make an excuse to go to bed, but he's always respected donny too much to treat him badly. "how'd you know?" he asks finally.

donny sighs and doesn't say anything for a few minutes. then, he finally says, "i packed one of my girlfriend's sweaters to bring into the house with me. do you have anything of their's you could just hold?"

zach blushes. he has frankie's tom ford bow tie still, but he's not saying that out loud. that night he ends up fishing it out of his suitcase so he can go to sleep with the bow tie sitting on his pillow, but he ends up falling asleep with it in his hand. he doesn't time travel that night at all. he's so blissful from just touching something of frankie's that he has amazing dreams, dreams like real soulmates have when their bonds are settling.

in his dream, frankie is sleeping in the rock room alone, cuddling zach's old pillow to his chest and sniffing it. he doesn't know why it's such a nice dream, but it soothes him enough to sleep late into the afternoon, and he doesn't even worry about being ripped away from this time once that day.

he does wonder, though, if having this dream means donny is right and the bond is settling somewhat without his or frankie's help. it sounds stupid, but having dreams like these are one of those tell-tale signs that zach often hears about from his family members who are married.

* * *

**january, 2017**

unfortunately, this doesn't last for very long. there's only so many nights zach can get away with sleeping next to the bow tie before he starts to need it during the day too. he ends up carrying it around inconspicuously in the pocket of his khaki shorts until the next week when nicole comes back to jury and she greets him by shoving him into the massive pool, designer bow tie concealed in his shorts and all.

the smell of chlorine has washed away any lingering scent it had still had of frankie's. zach lets it air dry on his dresser and, without it next to him in bed that night, he has horrible nightmares about he and frankie arguing until he wakes up the next morning with a backache.

and apparently in a twin size bed, which he's just fallen out of out trying to roll over and find a cold section of sheet to move to. he opens his eyes groggily and there's something wet and cold brushing along his jaw and neck, and zach's not naive enough to think it could be frankie.

"hey, buddy," zach says to tiger, scratching tiger behind the ears. "daddy's happy to see you, too," he grins as he watches tiger's tail wag eagerly. zach has a very concerning, yet thankfully very fleeting, thought that maybe he's time traveled backwards, and he's twelve and has to go to middle school all over again.

then, he quickly remembers he wouldn't have tiger yet if that was the case. he stands up muttering _fuck fuck fuck_ under his breath until he spots his phone on his bedside table, resting on a stack of old britney spears and n'sync cd's.

it's apparently 2017, which he thinks he's experienced before when he first saw he and frankie's apartment in new york. he's pretty fucking sure this isn't going to be anything like that, though, considering he's waking up in his childhood bedroom back in florida.

"oh, you're up!"

zach looks up to see his mother standing in his doorway. he immediately runs up to her and hugs her, thrilled that no matter what's gone wrong by the time he's twenty-seven that he still has his dog and his mom.

"wow," jill says, chuckling, "you should get dumped more often if this is how i get treated."

zach pulls back from her. _"what?"_ he spits.

she winces. "sorry, honey. too soon?"

zach stares at her blankly with a horrible feeling of dread settling over him. he waits until she leaves to scroll through the contacts in his phone, he sees he has a semi-recent call from some guy named _lance_ , of all names. he snorts. maybe he and frankie broke up because he cheated on frankie with this _lance_ guy. _shit_ , he thinks, maybe he did.

he calls frankie again and again, but he never picks up.

* * *

a few hours later, he wants to call frankie again, but he's already been sent straight to voicemail about ten times now. zach wonders if frankie is actually away from his phone or if he's purposefully hitting ignore every time zach's picture pops up. zach sees ariana's name in the contacts of his iphone and thinks about trying her. he's technically only found out that ariana is frankie's sister a few short weeks ago, so he wouldn't know how to ask her where frankie is, or even if that would be crossing a line and putting her in an awkward position. zach doesn't know who to call, so he calls cody.

when cody picks up, after only two short rings, zach is happy that not everyone he knows is angry with him. "hey, _wow,_ man," cody says, "haven't heard from you in a while."

zach wilts. maybe everyone he knows is mad at him. "what do you mean?" he hedges, suddenly feeling idiotic for assuming he and cody were still close.

cody snorts loudly. "every time i text you, you're too busy with _frankie_ to meet up." he sounds bitter and maybe even jealous, but over zach and frankie's exciting life, or of frankie stealing zach away, zach doesn't know.

zach blows air noisily out of his mouth, not knowing what to say. he feels kind of like a dick for ignoring his bro. "i'm free all week, man," he promises. he hopes and prays that he'll travel back in time sooner rather than later, but after his last overexerting twelve hour jump, he has no idea when to expect to get out of this time.

"yeah?" cody asks, sounding surprised. "well, _fuck._ i might be able to swing a trip up there to hang out with you guys."

zach cringes. "no, it's just me, dude. i'm home."

 _"home?"_ cody asks sourly, "where's _that?_ new york? los angelos? or have you and frankie relocated to france, or something?"

zach feels his insides twist. he wasn't ready to hear how linked cody thinks he and frankie are. cody talks like they're attached at the hip and this is still two years before their engagement. "florida, man. i'm in florida."

"shit, are you really?" cody asks. _"why?"_

 _"why?"_ zach asks defensively, "am i not supposed to miss my family?"

cody shrugs on the other line. "guess so, man. last time you called you said you were about ready to move in with him."

zach thinks he feels almost sick enough to throw up. "no," he starts, clearing his throat, "that's funny, dude. no way."

there's a pointed silence on the other end and zach hopes cody won't call his bluff. "trouble in paradise?" cody laughs. so much for that.

zach's blood boils. "no, it's - it's whatever. he's not answering my calls."

 _"oh,"_ cody says, obviously uncomfortable, "what'd you do?"

zach wishes he fucking knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, originally this was going to be only two parts, then i realized i hadn't updated in a month and it's stupid to not just post what i already have.


	3. part three

zach doesn't get any headaches signaling any time jumps over the next few hours, so he figures he's going to be stuck here in his own personal version of hell for a while longer than he'd like. he texts cody all day out of boredom and loneliness, wishing he had the nerve to text someone who would actually be able to tell him why frankie hates him now.

 _come up here for the weekend_ , cody texts, _we can go to nyc and party on new year's_

zach wonders if it would even be worth the hike. what would happen if he time traveled back while he was in the middle of his three hour long plane trip? he thinks about stewing at home and watching the new year's broadcast of times square with his parents, but he realizes that he's already been in 2017 for twelve hours now, tied for the longest amount of time stuck in the future yet, and he feels physically sick to his stomach with how much he misses frankie.

 _yeah dude_ , zach responds, _let's tear shit up_

he books his returning flight for monday at nine in the morning from new york back to florida. he'll probably be hungover as fuck from partying all night sunday, but he thinks it doesn't matter when he books the stupid flight, anyway. it's not like he'll actually be needing it. jury without frankie is bad enough, but being stuck in this time period knowing frankie hates him is way worse. there's no way he'll be needing that flight home, right?

* * *

he and cody make it to the city in the early afternoon on the last day of december and zach has a fever. cody has already made him chug dayquil, which zach thinks is unwise, considering they're definitely going to be drinking later if zach can haul his ass out of bed. zach is beginning to learn that the nasty physical side effects of his time traveling are probably related to having his soulmate ripped forcibly from him. thinking about frankie makes his symptoms worse, so he groans and tries to focus on the reruns of seinfeld playing on the tv in their room.

cody throws a shoe at zach, the cowlick at the back of his head bouncing tragically as he does so. "we came here to party and you're laying in bed with a glob of vick's on your chest. if you're not going out tonight, at least go find frankie _now_. i know you didn't actually agree to share a hotel room with me because you missed me."

"that's not true! _dick!"_ zach croaks, his barely there, wispy mustache trembling as he shivers under his heavy blankets.

cody snorts, turning his back on zach to pull his shirt off and grab a fresh one from his suitcase to head into the shower with. "yup," he says, "that's exactly what you need."

"shut up," zach says hoarsely from bed, thinking about how right cody is about their sex life, but not wanting him to know. "we _both-"_

"i'm not interested," cody interrupts, "just judging from your behavior, you could really use a dicking, and it's not gonna come from me." he steps into the bathroom with one last snicker aimed at zach before zach hears the shower being turned on.

when zach finally can't take it anymore, he grabs the elevator downstairs with a kleenex pressed against his nose, wishing he wasn't so sickly, so frankie actually _would_ be able to sleep with him without catching the bubonic plague. he thinks if frankie _is_ his soulmate, frankie should probably be hacking up phlegm the same way zach is, but he has a horrible feeling of dread that frankie will be as healthy as a horse when he sees him.

when he gets to frankie's apartment, zach's nose stops running before he even has to knock on the door. it's like zach's soul can detect it's match is in the vicinity and his body has accordingly stopped trying to eat itself alive from separation anxiety.

when frankie comes to the door, he cocks one hip so he's leaning against the door frame of their apartment - no, _frankie's_ apartment - with a pompous raise of his eyebrows, like he's not at all surprised to see zach here to grovel. zach doesn't think he's seen such an unimpressed look on frankie's face since week one in the house when zach said he knew what pinecrest kids were like. he can't say he's missed the feeling of inferiority it gives him. "what do you want?"

zach blanches. frankie is not only not ill, but is sporting radiant skin and soft hair. zach self-consciously rakes one hand through his messy hair from under the beanie he put on because of how cold his ears were. _"shit._ um. can i come in?"

"no," frankie sighs like he's bored by this conversation, like they've had it a million times already. zach hopes he hasn't been here before to try and force himself in frankie's apartment, but he can't say it would surprise him if he had. "wait here," frankie tells him.

zach stands awkwardly in the doorway to his own home ( _not anymore,_ he corrects himself). it's a shame too, because every time he traveled here from his current time, he had grown to love this place. he spots a flyer tacked up on the cork board in the foyer with the words _new year's bash_ in gold cursive. he doesn't know why, but he quickly snatches it and stuffs it in his pocket.

when frankie finally returns, he's carrying a cardboard box. "this is for you," he says.

zach takes the box from frankie and peers inside of it. he can see some long-sleeved fair isle sweaters that he wouldn't ever buy at his current age of twenty-four at the bottom of the box and wonders if the twenty-seven year old version of himself lets frankie pick out all his clothes for him. at the top of the box is what looks like an envelope stamped with the verizon logo.

"your phone bills keep getting sent here," frankie complains. zach remembers when nicole had told him frankie had been talking shit about him all summer and he had called frankie an _ugly work of art_ in front of her and derrick. he remembers this like it was yesterday, but it was actually something like three years ago if he's thinking in relation to this year. still, that's exactly what frankie looks like right now.

zach feels hurt, so he channels his disappointment into sarcasm. "i feel terrible i didn't get you anything."

 _"ah,"_ frankie says, using his pointer finger to gesture something that is beyond zach's comprehension. "there it is. that zach rance charm. well, it's been a pleasure." his stare bores into zach's soul and makes zach realize that, yeah, he was just a dick to frankie.

zach eventually, after several long seconds of being still too confused to move, steps back from the door. frankie closes it and zach is left wondering what the hell he did in the first place. he only makes it until the elevator reads _floor eight_ as he's leaving the building before his nose begins to run again. it's gut-wrenching to think about the reasoning behind frankie not getting sick from being apart from zach like zach was from being apart from frankie. 

* * *

zach's only ever hooked up with frankie three times and none of those times were even in his own current time. he's slept with only a handful of girls in his life and only one guy. he's not dating frankie yet in his time and they're broken up in _this_ time, but somehow he still feels like he's cheating on frankie when a girl takes his hands and puts them on her hips. maybe soulmate bonds exceed the parameters of space and time. maybe every girl zach's slept with before he met frankie was debatably cheating. maybe every guy frankie was with before he knew zach is the same.

zach's fever has gone down, which means frankie is definitely here already. the last time he checked his temperature before leaving, he was at a ninety-nine point two, but he feels perfectly fine now, except he's guilty for biding time waiting to find frankie by dancing with some girl.

"i'm hailey," she shouts over the music. she's short and has long blonde, highlighted hair. she's wearing a slinky, silver dress that mimics the sparkles of the times square ball. zach looks at her from the side and her metallic eye shadow reminds him of the glitter frankie used to put on his cheeks in the house.

zach dances with her for one song, then gestures towards the bar. "can i get you a drink?" he asks to be polite, since she's staring at him sort of expectantly, which actually reminds him a lot of frankie.

she nods. "vodka soda." she pulls up a bar stool and perches on it, her feet dangling a good foot off the ground.

zach pulls out his wallet, still standing by the bar. he's not going to say anything about it. he's not going to because he has dignity. he's not drunk enough to say it, but he _is_ , and he's already started to. "is it true vodka and cranberry juice cures urinary tract infections?" he asks.

"i don't _know,"_ she snaps, "i've never _had_ a uti." she glares for a few seconds in disbelief, looking ready to get up and leave, until she seems to spot something behind zach. "are you, like, designated driver, or something?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

zach frowns, swaying slightly. "i hope not. i've had, like, four beers already. why?" he hopes she isn't asking him to drive her home so they can hook up. he's really not interested and he has other matters to attend to.

"i think one of your bros is looking at you like he needs a lift home," she says, snickering. she pulls on the hem of her dress so it doesn't slide up as she gets off her bar stool. "see you later...." she trails off, not knowing zach's name.

zach hopes cody isn't already plastered and ready to leave. it's only ten past eleven and zach wanted to try and find frankie to kiss him at midnight, which he can't do if cody needs a chaperone back to their hotel. he sighs and goes to tell the girl his name. "i'm-"

_"zach!"_

zach feels a hand on his shoulder. frankie doesn't act like himself and zach has never seen him so drunk before.

 _"zach!"_ frankie shouts again, a huge smile spreading over his face. "zach, you came!" he looks like he's sweat off half the body glitter spread out over his bare chest, but the tops of his shoulders are littered with it. zach doesn't realize until he looks up at frankie's face that the glitter is literally falling from his hair down to his shoulders.

zach has his jacket on and he's still cold from how close the bar is to the exit doors every time someone slips out for a cigarette, but he still has the urge to slide his jacket off and put it over frankie's bare shoulders.

zach feels his eyebrows furrow as he realizes frankie doesn't seem surprised to see him. "i - _yeah_. i came." he doesn't know why frankie isn't angry, but he's not going to complain.

"i saw you take my flyer," frankie explains, gazing at zach almost starry-eyed, and zach wonders if frankie had _wanted_ zach to show up. frankie is ten times more confusing than any girl zach's ever known.

frankie brings one hand up to rest it on zach's forearm to steady himself as he tries to hop into the bar stool that the girl was just in. "do a shot with me!" frankie slams both hands down on the counter-top to get the attention of the bartender. "patron, please!"

zach feels like he probably isn't going to be winning frankie back if he ends up in the emergency room with him getting their stomachs pumped together, as romantic as that sounds. "frankie, hang on," zach says, gently patting his knee so frankie will stop shouting at the bartender. "look at me. you feel okay?"

frankie nods happily. " _yes!_ yes! i love this song. do you want to dance?" he grabs at zach's hand that's still resting on frankie's knee and tries to intertwine their fingers.

zach pulls his hand back into his own lap, and he's amused by frankie's obvious pouting. "oh, yeah? who sings it?" zach snorts, expecting to catch frankie in a lie.

frankie slips off his bar stool so quickly that zach can't tell if it's intentional or drunken flailing. "madonna," frankie answers in a heartbeat. "i love this shirt," he continues in the same breath, clumsily tugging at the collar of zach's tee shirt that peeks out from under his jacket. "did i buy you this?" he leans in and zach isn't sure if he's trying to nuzzle zach's neck or kiss him.

"frankie," zach groans, prying frankie's hands from his chest, "i think i should get you a cab."

"no!" frankie yelps. "it's almost midnight!" zach is about to tug frankie out into the street to try and hail a taxi when cody finds them. his eyes dart between them like he's unsure if he's just interrupted a fight or a reunion.

"hey, frankie," cody says when he sees there's no tension between them, opening his arms wide for a hug.

frankie grimaces from behind zach's jacket. "make him go away," frankie whines so only zach can hear.

zach blushes, not knowing what exactly to do, so he just awkwardly pats frankie's back. cody gives him a thumbs up, seemingly impressed by zach's success. zach mouths _he's drunk_ and cody shrugs as if it doesn't matter. on the contrary, zach thinks, it matters a lot. he would have to be an asshole to let frankie throw himself at him when they're broken up just because frankie's drunk enough to maybe not remember tomorrow.

when frankie finally pulls back and goes to reluctantly hug cody, cody grins mischievously, and zach hopes he's not about to do what he thinks he's about to. "frank," cody says, "you look tired. maybe you should let zach take you home."

"yes!" frankie smiles as he pulls back from cody. "but not until the ball drops!"

zach glares at cody. now isn't the time to play wingman. he hadn't come here to do anything but apologize and beg for frankie's forgiveness for whatever the hell he did. now his heart is racing at the thought of going back to frankie's apartment, even if only to get him home safely and in one piece.

"um," frankie says very cutely, pawing at zach's chest again as they sit by the bar, "i think i got you this shirt from tagg."

zach thinks he remembers frankie mentioning a clothing store named tagg when he had asked frankie once in the house where frankie got his clothes from. he's pretty sure frankie had said it was a gay store. so, zach must be some sort of metrosexual with an ambiguous sexual orientation in the future. wonderful. 

"you can't undress me in public," zach snickers, trying not to blush. he feels a little pathetic that he's even putty in frankie's hands when frankie is inebriated. "c'mon, let's get a cab."

zach knows it's cruel to lie and promise to go back to frankie's apartment with him, but he can't bare to disappoint frankie. when they get a taxi, it's stuck because of the traffic, and zach doesn't think they'll be moving anytime soon. he decides to tell frankie that he won't be accompanying him back to his apartment, but promises to come over early the next morning. he wisely neglects to say that he might not be able to keep this promise, if he happens to time travel.

"shit, cody has my wallet." zach mumbles to himself when the driver wants to know where they're heading. "frankie, i don't have any cash to pay this guy," he says a little lower, so the driver can't hear. "where's your wallet?"

frankie yawns, being incredibly uncooperative. "i'm not telling unless you promise to stay at my place."

zach winces. they're probably traumatizing their driver, who zach can see peeking at them analytically from the rearview mirror. he looks at frankie, who's slumped against zach's shoulder, eyes fluttering shut. "fine."

"back pocket of my jeans," frankie mumbles, then wiggles under zach's arm to cuddle. zach feels stupid for not checking frankie's pockets before. he slides the wallet out of frankie's low-slung jeans and frankie smiles a little into zach's chest. this is a far cry from the way frankie was treating zach earlier that afternoon.

zach sighs. now that he actually has frankie beside him and his fever has gone down, he doesn't want to travel back anymore. if he travels back tonight, he's just going to wake up in jury alone, to have nightmares all night, and probably get sick again. with his luck, he probably won't even make it back to frankie's apartment before he gets blown back into 2014.

zach thinks he was supposed to have figured out by now what he did wrong for them to have broken up, but he's not going to ruin frankie's new year's eve bringing it up now, just as the ball is about to drop. there's something else he wants to know, though. "why weren't you sick?" zach asks suddenly.

frankie looks at him with cinched eyebrows. "what?"

zach doesn't know how to explain his time traveling induced calamities, nor his soulmate bonding illnesses, so he tries to be concise. "i woke up at my parents' house with a flu that didn't start to let up until i saw you this afternoon."

"that's not possible," frankie says, swallowing hard. "zach, we're not...." he trails off.

"soulmates?" zach asks. "we aren't soulmates?" his hears his voice crack and he thinks he's going to pass out. he doesn't understand, but he thinks this is like a nightmare turned to reality, and he thinks it's probably because he dreamed something like this in the jury house. he should have remembered that every dream about your soulmate is important, even apparently the nightmares. if frankie _isn't_ his soulmate, though, he's fucked. 

 _"ten...nine...eight....."_ the radio station their cab driver is playing at a suspiciously high volume is broadcasting the ball drop. the car pulls to an abrupt halt at a red light that the cab driver hadn't managed to run. he swears loudly from the front seat in another language. _"seven...six...five..."_ the radio observes.

frankie doesn't have his seatbelt on, so he goes flying forwards. zach protectively throws his arms out and pulls frankie over to him. frankie is flat to zach's chest, breathing a little ragged. he curls his hand around the back of zach's neck and kisses him, just as the radio counts down to one.

frankie's nails claw into the skin at the back of zach's neck. zach tries to think this through, wants to stop and try to figure out how in the world frankie _wouldn't_ be his soulmate after all of this, but he hasn't kissed frankie since _weeks_ ago when he was stuck in 2019.

zach has his foot jammed up against the divider separating the backseat from the front. he feels frankie trying to scoot even closer, but there's no way to do that without him getting into zach's lap, and zach's not going to have sex in a cab stuck behind a red light in heavy new york city traffic on new year's eve.

frankie pulls back from zach's mouth to press kisses to zach's cheek and nibble at his ear. zach tries to pull away, because their cab driver is probably looking at them in the rearview mirror by now, but frankie twists one leg between zach's to keep him from sliding over.

zach feels something warm and slightly heavy ghosting over the top of his lip. he thinks it's just hot air coming from the heating of the car, but when zach darts his tongue out to lick his lips, he tastes blood. "oh, _fuck,"_ he mutters, reaching out to grab frankie's forearm to steady himself.

"it's okay," frankie says softly, "it's just a nose bleed." he pulls something out from the pocket of his jeans, which turns out to be a black napkin with the logo of the club stamped on it. he presses it under zach's nose to soak up the blood before it drips to zach's mouth again.

"i don't want to leave," zach whimpers, squinting through the migraine that came seemingly from nowhere.

frankie grabs zach's cheeks and tries to force eye contact. "what are you talking about?"

"nothing," zach bites, digging his nails into the skin at frankie's wrists. he bows his head to frankie's chest and closes his eyes, his headache intensifying. he thinks maybe, just maybe, if he can hold tightly enough onto frankie, he can stay in the future just a little bit longer. he doesn't want to go back to jury. he'll just be stuck there without frankie, and whenever he sees frankie again, it'll be like starting from square one again.

frankie wraps his arms tightly around zach and zach can feel himself being rocked gently back and forth like a baby. he wonders what happens when he disappears into thin air. does his actual twenty-seven year old self appear beside frankie in this cab? he wishes there was a way to know for sure.

"frankie," zach whines, "don't let me go." he realize this sounds painfully juvenile, but he means it in the literal sense. he thinks frankie could be the anchor that grounds him in this time when he starts to slip away. 

but zach thinks about frankie trying to tell him that it was impossible for them to be soulmates, feels that thought chip away at his sanity and faith in his feelings for frankie until he almost _does_ want to go back to jury, feeling intensely betrayed, and then it's too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last time i change the number of chapters this will have, i swear. i'm so sorry this was so angsty, but it won't be next time.


	4. part four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "frankie, your hands are on my chest." 
> 
> frankie balks, giving zach a look of annoyance. “no, they’re not,” he bristles. then, he looks down. both of his hands are on zach’s chest, and zach’s body, in return, thrums with joy. “oh my god!”

when zach gets ripped from the taxi cab, he expects to wind up back in jury like nothing had ever happened, just as he always has. this time, his nose bleed persists and he's left with the black napkin balled up inside his fist, which is shaking.

zach raises his arm to wipe his nose on his sleeve, too shaken to care if he ruins his shirt. he doesn't know if it's dawn or dusk because of the faded marigold and plum tinges to the sky. he's losing track of time when he's traveled and, even when he's in the _right_ time, he still has no grasp of it.

he's sitting on the couch, head tipped back and eyes to the ceiling, when he hears a faint rustling noise coming from behind him. when he lifts his head, he catches a flurry of movement with his peripheral vision.

"oatmeal?" jocasta asks, pulling a carton of whole milk from the refrigerator. she rips open the package set on the counter and turns her back on him, reminding zach of how his mother used to pack his school lunches when he was a kid.

zach sets the napkin out on the kitchen island, slouching over on himself in the bar stool and rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. the spots in his vision created by the pressure he applies to his eyelids gives way to reading the stamp on the napkin once he's smoothed out the crinkles in it from being balled in his fist. "thanks, mama j."

"what's that?" she asks, walking a little closer. "that the little bow tie you've been carrying around?"

zach grimaces, shaking his head. he pushes the napkin towards her, to her confusion.

she scans over it with a laugh. "you snake this off someone from production?" she asks with playful disapproval.

he presses his lips together tightly. "no," he says slowly, "i was at a club and this is the insignia."

she gives him a judgemental eyebrow raise and pats him on the back, pity written all over her face. "you need to stop falling asleep on the couch," she chastises.

"i'm going to bed soon," zach promises, "i need a good night's sleep."

"no, honey, it's morning," jocasta says, as if time is measurable and meaningful, when zach knows better. "the sun is rising."

zach shrugs. he looks over to the window again and the pool water is glistening under the dim light of the multi-toned sky and the sharp edges of palm trees billow in the wind. he realizes it doesn't matter to him whether it's morning or night, this year or another. none of it matters. the mechanics are too much for zach to process. all he knows is that none of the _frankie's_ he loves are here - not the detached and clinical frankie playing the game, not the frisky and excitable frankie trying to goad him into sex at four in the morning, not even the steely and emotionally compromised frankie who still wants to wipe zach's nose when it bleeds.

when he finishes his oatmeal, he clambers off his bar stool, and glitter falls from his pant legs onto the wood floor. he looks down at the evidence for long enough to make his brain go fuzzy with thoughts of frankie's bare shoulders before he sighs heavily and goes upstairs. he passes hayden's door on the way to his own room and can hear soft giggling reverberating from the walls.

the toll taken on his body is more debilitating than he imagined. he wakes up later, still exhausted, and gets up to pee. he bumps into hayden, who's carrying two bowls of ice cream down the hallway. hayden tells him he's been in bed for fourteen hours. zach shrugs and goes back to bed. 

* * *

  **august, 2016**

zach wakes up from his deep slumber again some time later, but he's back in frankie’s apartment.

 _"yeah, frankie, fuck,"_ zach can hear himself mumbling without his own volition. he can feel his hand lightly squeezing what feels like the back of someone's neck. when his surroundings come into focus, he looks down into his lap and sees frankie's hand wrapped around the base of zach's dick, and zach moans involuntarily.

he's been without blow jobs for the summer, of course, being sequestered off from society, but even before then he wasn't exactly getting blown on a regular basis. zach's never really imagined doing this with frankie, save for maybe one light conversation they'd had doing dishes back before he'd left for jury.

 _"i'm gonna win that last hoh,"_ zach had boasted to frankie and christine, as he predicted the rest of his game. _"then whoever gives me the best head-"_ zach started, about to tell them that that's who he'll take to the final two, when he got interrupted by their raucous laughter.

 _"i won!"_ frankie had giggled. _"i will win!"_

zach had shot him an amused look, trying to gage if frankie was kidding or not. it hadn't appeared he was, as he had been grinning smugly.

 _"frankie,"_ christine had asked, _"let's talk honestly. guys have to give better head 'cause they know what they want."_

frankie had nodded with little to no shame. _"yeah, exactly. gay guys give better head than the straight girls."_

zach had passed it off as a biased opinion.

zach was trying to stay sat up straight on the edge of the bed, but he was beginning to slightly slump towards frankie, who would occasionally pull away to adjust himself with one hand down his jeans, which made zach feel kind of weirdly accomplished for turning frankie on without trying. it was _insane_. never has zach once had a girl attempt to touch herself in any capacity while sucking him off.

this was way different because zach could see that frankie didn't mind. even more than that, he could tell that frankie was turned on by the way he refused to stop, even through his labored breath. zach mutters about how crazy it is that it feels this good, and frankie pulls off completely to laugh before he shakes his head and eagerly jumps back into it.

the girls who zach's been with like this had hated when zach spoke through it, like if he asked for something else it was an insult to their character. with frankie, all zach has to do to get him to focus more on the head is gently pull himself halfway out of frankie's mouth, and it's immediately understood. zach doesn't know if that's because frankie is a guy and just _knows_ or if it's because they've probably done this a lot in this future.

zach has never had a girl focus so much on wetting the head of his dick with spit before and he's not sure if he's ever had more trouble in his life trying not to come. normally, he would try to come as quickly as possible with a girl because he would see their discomfort, but frankie acts like he could do this for hours, and zach kind of wants to test it.

unfortunately, he has no time to warn frankie, so he pulls himself out in time to come in thick stripes across frankie's bottom lip. frankie's technique is so good that zach's thighs tremble with aftershocks after he's come. zach thinks he could probably take a forty-eight hour nap, he's so sated.

"you didn't have to," frankie pants, looking genuinely surprised.

zach shrugs. he would never force frankie to swallow for him, no matter how much frankie appeared to be enjoying the experience.

frankie raises an eyebrow after a couple minutes. "well?" he's leaning back against the headboard of the bed and zach thinks about how strange it is that frankie says please when he asks zach to bring him milk from the storage room, but doesn't say please when he wants zach to suck him off. call him crazy, but zach thinks these demands are slightly varying in difficulty, and he thinks frankie should maybe reevaluate when he uses his _please's_.

"zach?" frankie asks, crossing his ankles with his sneakers still on.

zach gapes as frankie starts to rub himself over his jeans again. "maybe we should wait til later," he suggests weakly.

"okay," frankie shrugs passively. he spreads his legs out lewdly in front of zach, taking up so much space that zach has nowhere to go but to sit cross-legged between frankie's knees. frankie picks his phone up off his bedside table without making eye contact with zach and unlocks it, fingers sliding over the screen as his interest goes elsewhere.

zach realizes that it kind of irritates him when frankie ignores him, especially when zach can see frankie's dick straining slightly through his pants, though frankie looks entirely unphased by this as he scrolls through his phone. he wishes frankie would just jerk off and get it over with.

frankie finally drops his phone and unzips himself slowly, almost giving zach a show.

first, zach decides that the very least he could do is help frankie take off his jeans and his sneakers if he's not going to help get frankie off. when he's done undressing frankie, zach takes one look at frankie's bulge in his white briefs, and he decides the very least he could do would be to rub him through his underwear.

frankie smirks at him knowingly as zach curiously rubs three fingers across his shaft. he can feel frankie thickening under his fingers and then, well, he decides the very least he could do would be to suck the tip for a couple minutes. it's not like frankie expected him to deep throat, right?

zach lowers his head to frankie's groin very slowly, vainly pretending for nobody's sake that he was hoping for a time jump, even though he wasn't.

frankie's eyes flutter shut in a very sweet way. zach knows this because he's looking up at frankie for approval. he thought he would be terrible at this, but muscle memory must serve him well from his age of twenty-six, because he sucks the head ambitiously.

it's not until frankie's hand twists harshly through zach's hair that zach feels himself hardening again, which doesn't happen for him normally at age twenty-four. zach grinds his hips down into the bed for friction, stifling a groan with his mouth bobbing very slowly over the head of frankie’s dick, though his chin gets wet with his own spit as he does.

he’s so embarrassed that he’s gotten hard again that he wraps his hand around frankie’s shaft and tries to get him off faster, so he doesn’t come twice before frankie has come at all.

"okay," frankie says, his voice shaking slightly, "head up." he gently tugs on zach’s earlobe to get his attention. "good boy," he adds mischievously as zach lifts his face up automatically, brain running on auto-pilot because of the surrealness of the current situation.

zach pulls off of frankie’s dick and clears his throat awkwardly. it feels slightly sore and zach actually does want to jump back in time to jury now, just from how freaked out he is that he's enjoying this.

zach is so busy thinking about how he can’t believe he’s just sucked a guy’s dick that he doesn’t realize why frankie had lifted his chin and told him to keep his head up.

when frankie pulls out of zach’s mouth, he has his fist around his own shaft for maybe thirty seconds before he shoots so thickly that some gets into zach’s hair.

frankie laughs when zach awkwardly wipes his mouth against his own hand. “why did this remind me of the first time you ever sucked me off?” frankie asks. “you said you would try, but you were only doing it because i asked, then you got hard the second you started,” he comments with a grin. “i didn’t have my hand on you for ten seconds afterwards before you came, you were so into it.”

zach glares at frankie, though frankie can’t tell, as he’s picked up his phone again. zach rebelliously wipes off what’s left of frankie’s come from zach’s face onto frankie’s sheets.

"zach, no!" frankie yelps. "these sheets are fifteen-hundred count egyptian cotton!"

* * *

  **september, 2014**

"zach, ew. you're ruining these sheets. they look expensive! zach?"

zach groans, the sound masked slightly by his bed due to his sleeping on his stomach. fuck, zach thinks in annoyance, frankie coerced him into giving the first blow job of his life and he can't even let him get his beauty rest.

"you're drooling," frankie assesses, one hand spread flat very carefully against zach's mattress to avoid the small drool spot.

zach's eyes take a while to adjust to the darkness of the room with shades pulled down over the windows, but when they do, he's surprised to see frankie's hair is an ashy brown color at the root before turning champagne blonde halfway up. he thinks he must have missed this last night. it's almost as if frankie's hair color changed overnight.

he thinks he's immensely glad to still be in the future, because frankie isn't going to be in jury anytime soon. he's probably going to be the last person standing, and zach even wants to vote for frankie at the end himself. zach told frankie he just wanted frankie to carry him to jury so he could convince everyone to vote for frankie, but all the time zach's spent in jury he's wasted stuffing his fingers into his ears every time he passes hayden and nicole's room so he can block out their giggles, feeling so disgustingly jealous and not understanding why he isn't allowed that kind of easy and carefree relationship with someone.

frankie snorts. "wake up!" his eyes trail over zach, while his hand skims past the top of zach's duvet and he slides his hand teasingly over zach's chest and rubs nonchalantly, like it was no more than how one might pet a dog.

zach doubles over in giggles, trying to brush away frankie's hand. _"stop!"_

"can you get up now?" frankie sighs heavily in exasperation, knocking zach's thoughts out of his head. "i owe you an explanation." his chest is bare and he looks at zach very seriously, but all zach can think about is the night before.

"after last night, you owe me a lot more than _that_ ," zach says, going red in the face thinking about sucking frankie off, and he buries his face down into his pillow to avoid frankie's perceptive stare. he knows he should be trying to soak up as much of future frankie's time as he can before he winds up back in jury, but he's just too embarrassed to make eye contact.

"last night?" frankie asks, voice tinkering higher than usual in amusement. "i just _got_ here twenty minutes ago."

 _"what?"_ zach asks, wiggling up in bed so he could rest his back on the headboard, the duvet slipping down to zach's lower waist and exposing the waistband of his grey boxer briefs.

"pay attention," frankie berates him, swatting zach's bare chest playfully. "hang on," he says, pulling the comforter back until it's pulled down to his thighs and zach's grey briefs are showing. "is that," he says incredulously, "dried come?"

zach rolls his eyes, thinking of the night before when zach had gotten precome in his underwear from blowing frankie, not that he wants frankie to know that. "it's not _mine,_ " he emends.

 _"what?"_ frankie squawks. "so, who's is it?" he interrogates, pulling his hand back from zach's leg and placing it in his own lap, like he'd been stung. "first paola, now some mystery man...."

zach stares at him and blinks very slowly. has he really fallen into this trap _again?_ this is the _second_ time frankie's gotten upset with zach for hooking up with someone, namely _frankie_. _what year is it?_ is what he wants to ask, but instead he says, slowly and with trepidation, "you got evicted."

frankie gives him a reproachful look, but otherwise ignores the question. "honestly, zach." he sighs heavily and stands up, walking over to zach's suitcase to rifle through his things. "your reasoning skills aren't exactly the sharpest."

"hey, that's my stuff!" zach frowns, not knowing whether to stay in bed to hide his dirty underwear away from frankie's furtive eyes or get up and take his suitcase away from frankie.

frankie snorts. "well-spotted." he _humphs_ in frustration at the limited amount of light in the room, swiftly walking from the bedside table to turn on the lamp before going back to the suitcase and finally pulling out zach's striped swimming trunks. with the soft light illuminating the room, zach can now see that frankie is shirtless because he's ready to _swim_.

his tight camo print bottoms vaguely remind zach of caleb's hunting cap, except these shorts, if you could even call them that, grip frankie's thighs and dick in an extremely flattering and sexy manner, and caleb looked anything but sexy in his camouflage baseball hat.

zach tries not to think about how frankie's dick has been in his mouth as he takes the trunks frankie has thrown him and fumbles with getting his underwear off under the covers.

"i _swear_ , if you hooked up with some middle-aged man from production-" frankie starts, watching with poorly disguised amusement as zach struggles to get dressed without letting the comforter slip down.

zach thinks _well, no, but_ we _sucked each other off,_ but says, "no! _god,_ frankie!" he should have just let frankie think he jerked off alone, not that zach had spent two months fending off frankie's advances in the house just to have some random sexual encounter with a man he barely knew. he imagines that would have to sting, not that he thinks frankie actually _believes_ that.

frankie shakes his head. "don't forget to put your underwear in the laundry basket," he calls out as he walks out of the room.

zach thinks he can hear hayden whistling from somewhere down the hall. he wants to die. 

* * *

by the time zach has stuffed his dirty boxer briefs as far down into his laundry basket as he could and jogged downstairs to find frankie, he notices that everybody is crowded around the kitchen island drinking beer. he grabs himself a bud light and looks around the room, expecting frankie to be in the middle of the group, probably lighting up the room and putting on an exciting rendition of his past few days in the big brother house.

christine and nicole are chatting animatedly to hayden, who's leaning up against the kitchen counter and laughing. donny and jocasta are watching over something cooking in the oven. donny catches zach's eye and jerks his head over to the window, as if to tell him that frankie is already outside waiting for him.

zach ducks his head, knowing that after the conversation he'd had with donny about soulmates when he first got here, donny must now _know_. zach squeezes in between hayden and jocasta to pull a few bud lights from the fridge.

he had the full intention to take the beers out to the pool, but now that he's thinking about everything, his head is spinning with nervousness and he's afraid if he doesn't take a moment to calm down, his panic will trigger a time jump, and he's not going _anywhere_ tonight, alright? he wants to sit on the edge of the pool with frankie, bump his shoulder into frankie's, and just spend time with him.

the problem is, he's one more gut-wrenching thought about frankie not being his soulmate away from conking out and waking up in his seventies to an empty bed and no boyfriend. zach tosses back three beers before he tries to slip away from everyone as discreetly as he can, but he feels almost like everyone is watching him from the corner of their eyes and are only pretending to be enraptured by some boring conversation to appease him, so he doesn't chicken out and not follow frankie outside.

as zach steps out onto the back patio, he's strongly reminded of the time he wrestled and tickled frankie and pao in the rock room, feeling the same magnetic pull to frankie now as he'd felt then. frankie is sitting at the edge of the pool, just as zach had suspected, but with his towel wrapped around his shoulders.

"i thought you weren't coming," frankie sighs, "i was just about to finish toweling off and go back inside."

zach laughs, feeling a little tipsy and a little courageous, or maybe just a little reckless, and sits down cross-legged beside frankie. "sure you were."

frankie's mouth drops open and he glares at zach, then elbows him sharply in the side. "asshole!"

"you missed me, right?" zach swallows hard and looks over the glistening water of the pool, avoiding frankie's eyes.

frankie _hmms_ like he has to think it over. "no," he says finally, "not at all. as soon as you walked out the door, i turned to caleb, and i said _'good riddance. he was always such a pain in my ass.'"_

zach refrains from making a sex joke, but only just barely. "you wanna swim?" he asks hopefully.

frankie shrugs. "i already did and now i'm too tired to move."

 _"frankie,"_ zach whines, _"please,_ c'mon. i'll give you a piggy back ride." 

* * *

 "yeah," zach spurs frankie on, still feeling a little less than sober, "hop on my back. i'm strong as _fuck."_

frankie snorts, but clambers up zach's back anyway and rests his palms lightly over zach's shoulders. "not exactly what i wanted to hop on, but i guess this will do."

"maybe we can do that later," zach suggests boldly, his hands hiking frankie further up his back by holding the undersides of frankie's thighs. he can feel frankie's dick, which isn't even hard, against his lower back, and zach isn't sure that this was a great plan.

 _"zach!"_ frankie scolds, laughing and burying his face into the back of zach's neck. zach shivers and tries to disguise it by wading closer to the deep end. when he gets to the place where his feet barely reach the bottom of the pool, he stands still, and lets the warm water come up almost to his shoulders.

"i've been having the weirdest dreams lately," frankie says conversationally, leaning heavily against zach's back, his chin jutting into his spine. "they feel almost like premonitions."

zach's jaw drops. he's glad frankie can't see his face. "like soulmate bonding dreams?" he asks, clearing his throat awkwardly.

frankie snorts, he slumps forward and lets his arms fall from zach's shoulder to cross over his chest. "no, as _if._ what guy would i have met between the big brother house and jury?" frankie asks, starting to crack up as if the idea of him being soulmates with someone he's met over the summer is ludicrous.

zach feels like he's suffocating a little. he wonders if the water has actually gone as cold as he thinks it has or if he's spontaneously grown a phobia of swimming in the past thirty seconds. "so, what were the dreams, then?"

"oh," frankie says, like had all but forgotten he'd mentioned it. "well, one started off really amazing. i was on stage and singing." frankie's voice goes soft and dreamy, before it drops back off into misery. "then, i looked into the crowd and nobody i knew was there. it was awful. i woke up from that one crying. i obviously lost my mind." frankie grins at zach.

"anything else?" zach hedges, greedy and desperate to know if any of his other dreams were anything like zach's experiences with time travel.

frankie nods, his chin against zach's shoulder. "yeah, the night before i got evicted, i had a dream where i was older and had to spend christmas alone. that's tragic, right?" he says off-hand, but his voice has a tinge of dread to it, like he really does fear being alone forever, which zach thinks everyone fears sometimes, even frankie, who said he didn't _need_ a soulmate.

zach can't help but think that frankie's dreams don't correspond with what's the norm for soulmate bonds. if zach hadn't already experienced symptoms straight out of the spanish influenza while being apart from frankie, he might think he was wrong all along and frankie wasn't really his soulmate after all, not to mention how flat frankie's voice had gone when he'd said just as much on new year's in the future.

"hey, why aren't you saying anything?" frankie says, trying to tilt his head sideways to see zach's face, "it's okay. i'm totally fine. so what if i've had some weird nightmares?"

zach is pacing in the pool with frankie on his back before he can help it, biting down hard on his bottom lip and trying to understand the connection, if there even is one. usually when someone finds their soulmate, they have sweet, romantic dreams, not _nightmares_. but what about a dream where he's performing on broadway and zach isn't there? what about a dream where it's christmas morning and frankie's alone with no sign of getting engaged?

suddenly, zach thinks he understands. he looks over his shoulder and meets frankie's eyes finally, only to see frankie staring at him with concern, probably for his mental state. "did you have a dream about new year's in the future too?" zach asks.

frankie blanches, taken aback. "zach," frankie says with a warning tone, "explain yourself."

"so, you had a dream you were performing on broadway and nobody came to see you, a dream you were totally abandoned on christmas too, _and_ a dream where you were alone on new year's?" zach asks excitedly, trying to fit the pieces together in his head.

frankie cocks his head in confusion. "wait, i didn't say i was on broadway. i said i was on _stage_. how did you know that? and i wasn't alone in my dream about new year's."

"what do you mean you weren't alone?" zach demands.

frankie tightens his grip around zach's neck, his crossed arms practically squeezing the life out of zach. "i can't _tell_ you. it's too humiliating."

"too _humiliating?"_ zach challenges. "remember when you saw nicole knock me over, shove a sock in my mouth, and give me the worst wedgie of my entire life?"

frankie blows out a frustrated breath onto zach's back, the warm gust of air giving zach goosebumps. "this isn't _like_ that. that was funny. this makes me sound so delusional."

zach frowns when he realizes this is serious. he backs up a few inches towards the shallow end and carefully slides frankie off his back so he can face him. "frankie, you're, like, my favorite person in the entire world. you could never do anything that i'd think was embarrassing."

frankie seems determined not to look at zach as he speaks. "i dreamt that i was at this club," frankie begins, voice shaky, and zach can't imagine how much worse it could be than _his_ new year's experience, "and you were there." frankie pauses to look up at zach meaningfully.

zach shrugs. "so far, so good?"

 _"zach,"_ frankie stresses, "what do people at parties when it's new year's?" he stares at zach with a flat expression, and somehow manages to look both exasperated with zach for not understanding, while simultaneously looking afraid for zach to understand.

zach's eyes widen. _"oh."_

"yeah," frankie says. "how'd you know i even _had_ a dream about new year's?"

zach thought he understand, but now he's completely lost again. he was so sure that frankie was going to describe a truly horrific new year's eve, something even worse than the future zach saw, maybe getting held at gun-point or being arrested for disorderly conduct, because zach really had no clue how anything could be worse than zach's tearful goodbye in the back of that cab.

only, frankie had dreamt of another _better_ version of that evening. _fuck_ , in _his_ version, zach never had to lie to get frankie in a cab, only to disappear on him into thin air. in frankie's version, they got to share a real kiss at midnight, probably with confetti and glitter, and definitely not with blood dripping down zach's nose and an eavesdropping cab driver watching them in the rear view mirror.

but, that was the only one of frankie's dreams that wasn't a nightmare. frankie hadn't seen zach in the crowd at rock of ages and frankie hadn't seen zach proposing on christmas. _god,_ no wonder why frankie hadn't wanted to admit he had dreamed that he'd kissed zach. for him, there was never any indication zach would be a part of his future.

 _"ugh,"_ frankie groans, "i knew i shouldn't have said anything. you look so traumatized."

zach shakes his head resolutely and wraps his arms tightly around frankie's neck, accidentally knocking frankie off balance and tipping them backwards until frankie was pressed against the side of the pool. "are you kidding? i'm not at all," he promises, his voice is muffled slightly against frankie's neck.

"what's your big fascination with soulmate bonds, anyway?" frankie asks. "is there something you need to tell me?"

zach freezes and squeezes his eyes shut. this isn't how he wanted frankie to find out that zach thinks they're soulmates. frankie is still backed up against the side of the pool, stilling the open hand that was rubbing soothingly over zach's back when he feels zach clam up. the only noise to be heard is the gentle hum of the pool filter until frankie pulls his face away from zach so he can look at him with a quizzical expression.

 _"fuck,_ i knew it. you and julie chen have been having an affair, haven't you?" he asks very seriously.

zach's shoulders slump with relief, immediately giggling. he pulls frankie back in for another hug, this time lowering his chin to frankie's shoulder. the feeling of finally being alone with frankie, without any cameras or any house guests, is causing zach's brain to fry a little. he presses his face into frankie's neck, his nose flattening out against it. there's something so oddly frantic about how zach feels, wanting to get closer to frankie than he already is, which zach doesn't think he could do unless he crawled under his skin. he's dubious as to whether frankie feels as intensely as he does about a stupid _hug,_ but the feelings zach has are all there, and they're all clawing their way up his throat, and threatening to spill out.

"in my dream," frankie says with a little, flustered giggle, "we were, like, _dating._ "

zach shudders, not able to even process what frankie might only mean as a joke with frankie's breath in his ear. he bends his face down further and starts gently kissing up frankie's neck. his arms lock around frankie's back and his close-mouthed kisses on frankie's neck gradually become more insistent and less friendly as he loses his train of thought. he thinks somewhere in the back of his hazy mind that he might have a semi pressing into frankie's hip. frankie groans, his head falling backwards on the edge of the pool, a tiny _thump_ echoing back to them.

zach doesn't know how, but the bond has been settling in the present time without them ever having had sex. there's no way they aren't in the process of bonding, if they haven't fully already. maybe all the times zach's hooked up with all these different future frankie's has sped it along.

that's when he realizes, it hasn't been only one frankie he's spent time with. the frankie on new year's who told him they weren't soulmates was not the same frankie that held him down and fucked him. just like the zach who never even got together with frankie, never mind _proposed_ to him, is not the same zach that kissed frankie on new year's eve.

all along frankie was having nightmares of desertion and solitude that followed only one timeline, just like all along zach was being propelled into another distinct timeline that granted him kisses and made his head swim. in one timeline, the one frankie had been seeing until recently, zach had never worked up the courage to admit he loved him and ignored fate, just like how jocasta said was possible. in the other timeline, the one zach had been experiencing until recently, zach had embraced the bond he knew they had, just like victoria's parents had.

"do you feel that?" zach asks in elation, pulling back from frankie's neck. he presses one more kiss to it before he lifts his head.

frankie huffs. "yeah, i do, but i'm not going to jerk you off in a pool."

"no!" zach yelps, going pink in the face, "i'm talking about the _pull._ you feel it, right?"

"the _what?"_ frankie asks, bewildered.

zach laughs and backs up until he's two feet away from frankie and crosses his arms over his chest to stop himself from the compulsion he has to reach out and fix the distance between them by touching frankie.

he waits. he's terrified that frankie won't feel anything, but he forces himself to wait.

after a minute, frankie slowly starts to wince, like he's in pain. "oh my god," frankie says, "it literally _physically_ hurts when you walk away."

zach lets out a frenzied bark of surprise. he breathes a sigh of relief so enormous it feels like he's weightless. his hands come up over his face to hide how much he's grinning.

"what is this?" frankie squeaks, "what's wrong with me?"

zach laughs. "nothing! we're-"

frankie gapes. "that's not _possible!_ we've never-" he tries to explain, "we've never had sex!" as frankie tries to convince zach that they aren't bonding, he begins to walk forward, but he doesn't seem to realize he's doing it. "i clearly just have some type of medical condition!"

"frankie, your hands are on my chest."

frankie balks, giving zach a look of annoyance. "no, they're not," he bristles. then, he looks down. both of his hands are on zach's chest, and zach's body, in return, thrums with joy. "oh my god!"

zach chuckles, bouncing up and down on the heels of his feet. he cannot contain himself. he steps the last tiny step forward to envelope frankie in another hug, but frankie is burnt out from not sleeping all week before his eviction and caught off guard by what's just happened.

he slams zach back against the pool wall, his grip so tight on zach's hips that they might actually bruise. "i didn't come here to get a boyfriend."

despite being held with an almost cruel grip, zach feels safe to be snug against frankie. "i'm not your boyfriend," he grins, "i'm your soulmate."

frankie seems to be sizing him up, trying to figure out why exactly zach looks so thrilled to discover this. zach knows he's going to get kissed, and it doesn't even matter to him that it might be because it will physically pain frankie to try and fend it off, because he knows frankie's anger at losing just a little of his independence will wear off, and when it does, zach will have gotten everything he ever wanted.

frankie steals back that first kiss of their's that zach got in the future the first time he'd time traveled. he licks open zach's mouth, taking his time, and bites his bottom lip sharply on the way out, and it leaves zach reeling. frankie pulls back suddenly, looking alarmed. "wait a second, you never hooked up with pao, right?" 

* * *

on his way past the living room, he runs into christine.

"hey, christine," he says, lightly grabbing her elbow, "what did frankie say after i walked out of the house?"

she scowls at being pulled away from everyone else. "i don't know. he said something like, _'so, when does he come back in?'"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading. hopefully this was worth the wait.

**Author's Note:**

> bizach.tumblr.com


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